General John K. Waters
John Knight Waters (December 20, 1906 – January 9, 1989) was a United States Army four-star general who served as commander, U.S. Army, Pacific from 1964 to 1966. He was also the son-in-law of General George S. Patton. During World War II, he was taken prisoner while fighting in Tunisia in 1943, leading Patton to set up the controversial Task Force Baum to break him out.
World War II
Waters was captured in Tunisia at Dejebel Lassouda when German forces attacked Sidi bou Zid during World War II.
Waters, who had married General George S. Patton's daughter Beatrice in 1934, was one of many officers interned at Hammelburg. Patton claimed that he did not know that Waters was at OFLAG XIII-B and that he feared the Germans would execute the POWs rather than let them be liberated. According to some sources the Third Army had received intelligence that Waters was indeed at the camp, having recently been moved there from Silesia.
Waters had been shot by a defending guard as he and a German officer were trying to contact the task force. Badly wounded, he was treated by a Serbian doctor Colonel Radovan Danic, the chief surgeon of the former Yugoslavian Army, who was also interned at the camp. The camp was liberated about a week to ten days later, but the only prisoners there were badly wounded and sick, the rest (including the remnants of Task Force Baum) having been moved farther east.